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What is wrong with the tracks? For all the technology the tau have, they aren't capable of armoring their tanks to reach even the basic level of the Leman Russ. There are sacrifices that are made for anything, and when you compare even the best tau tanks to the basic battle tank of the DAOT, the Baneblade, there is no comparison. They were designed for different things. Tau trade armor for versatility. The Imperium seeks durability.

 PhillyT wrote:
Also, a predator has greater armament than a hammer head.

...

Default mode comes with an autocannon. Upgraded, you get a lascannon- a weapon distinctly inferior to the rail gun in terms of armor piercing and range.

Sure, you can slap a few more lascannons on the sides, but that leaves the Predator with no anti-infantry gun. The Hammerhead still has bust cannons or an SMS.



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 PhillyT wrote:
What is wrong with the tracks? For all the technology the tau have, they aren't capable of armoring their tanks to reach even the basic level of the Leman Russ. There are sacrifices that are made for anything, and when you compare even the best tau tanks to the basic battle tank of the DAOT, the Baneblade, there is no comparison. They were designed for different things. Tau trade armor for versatility. The Imperium seeks durability.

We have an STC for the Baneblade, not a history of use. I've not seen many novels written about the DAoT.

Anything else about it, except what we know the IoM has done with it, is speculation... as is pretty much everything else about the DAoT, past a big robot rebellion. We don't know to what extent humanity developed its weapon systems or what aid it had... except we *DO* know what sorts of things it didn't do, like putting night vision gear into its tanks... something the US Army does.

Given that the Hammerhead can be dropped out of a passing aircraft, what armor it does have is impressive. The Eldar don't have skimmers with an AV of 13 on the front... their Hammerhead equivalent is just a 12.

It isn't needed as there is a horde in IG SURROUNDING the tank. Its like others said the Tau and IoM have a different way of fighting, hammerhead needs to have everything because there is only so many. IoM has oodles of specilized gear.

The baneblade was create during the DAOT as the main battle tank. There were entire divisions used in the crusade.

As far as the actual table top applciation of the tanks in question, the predator annihilator is a better and more versitile vehicle than the hammerhead.

Quickjager wrote:
It isn't needed as there is a horde in IG SURROUNDING the tank. Its like others said the Tau and IoM have a different way of fighting, hammerhead needs to have everything because there is only so many. IoM has oodles of specilized gear.

... but not so specialized as to see in the dark.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Quickjager wrote:
It isn't needed as there is a horde in IG SURROUNDING the tank. Its like others said the Tau and IoM have a different way of fighting, hammerhead needs to have everything because there is only so many. IoM has oodles of specilized gear.

... but not so specialized as to see in the dark.

No they got those too it's just tt sucks at representing fluff.

Yeah, there is only so far you can go when trying to make sense of table top rules. Night fighting wouldn't be a thing if night vision was realistically portrayed.

 PhillyT wrote:
The baneblade was create during the DAOT as the main battle tank. There were entire divisions used in the crusade.

As far as the actual table top applciation of the tanks in question, the predator annihilator is a better and more versitile vehicle than the hammerhead.

All things being equal, I'm pretty sure than on an Apoc-sized map, a number of Hammerheads will wipe the floor with an equal points-value of Predators. The Predators have to close in range, which should give the Tau two rounds of firing (1 at worst) before the Predators can shoot back.

With submunitions, the Tau are better able to beat hordes. The Tau have an alternate armament for the HH that is better than what the SM get for killing Space marines. The railgun beats the lascannon hands down against armor.

Heck, even against fliers, the Hammerheads will fair better by virtue of having an extra shot over the Predator (due to range).

You have to be smoking crack to think the Predator is good at anything (compared to a HH or Falcon) except as a cheap AV 13 vehicle.


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 PhillyT wrote:
Yeah, there is only so far you can go when trying to make sense of table top rules. Night fighting wouldn't be a thing if night vision was realistically portrayed.

It is for the Tau. Almost everything in our Codex can get it. Kroot, vespid, and drones don't get it. Everything else comes with it default or can be purchased.

Why do Tau get night-fighting gear when other factions can't? Eldar almost always pick their own battles and don't need it. D Eldar see in the dark.. and humans are too backward technologically to build them. That';s why they use search lights on tanks.

Wait, I must have missed the part where Norton's entire point was based on the erroneous assumption that the Predator was the best tank the DAoT could churn out.

lol. The Predator is and has always been stated to be a light tank at best, and yes, it used to be more like the modern Razorback.

It's a modified colony rover, for pete's sake... and, I might add, the Rhino has a hover version, and had to be retrofitted for mass deployment by the Guild Mechanicus to use tracks instead.

 PhillyT wrote:
Predators were not the peak of human tech in their greatest period. It is easily sustained in numbers and repaired.

Not easily sustained or repaired enough, since they're only given to Space Marines. The Imperium can't field them as widely as the Tau field Hammerheads by a longshot.

 PhillyT wrote:
What is wrong with the tracks? For all the technology the tau have, they aren't capable of armoring their tanks to reach even the basic level of the Leman Russ. There are sacrifices that are made for anything, and when you compare even the best tau tanks to the basic battle tank of the DAOT, the Baneblade, there is no comparison. They were designed for different things. Tau trade armor for versatility. The Imperium seeks durability.

Tracks are fine, just that the Imperium has a strange habit of leaving them exposed or worse yet, give them no suspension.

At 140 points on standard tables, predators are the superior anti-vehicle platform. It is pretty basic math.

If the Hammerhead is deployed to avoid laser fire, which it should be, it is also well out of range to do anything but shoot that one gun every turn. And I think any of us who have ever had a tua army can tell you that the hammer head is a the most frustrating thing in the list (I had three and was constantly disappointed - one chance to do anything isn't enough at the point cost though they are cheaper than ever now).

At standard "long" ranges, the multiple chances are a real blessing.

Besides, without having this turn too far towards table top discussion, if marines need to kill something further away, you deal with those tough vehicles with drop pod melta. Works everytime.

It's the only tank given to space marines because its the only tank that can fit them in it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Wait, I must have missed the part where Norton's entire point was based on the erroneous assumption that the Predator was the best tank the DAoT could churn out.

If you go back to the beginning, my point was that humanity's tanks (it doesn't matter what you consider the best human tank, since I'm pretty sure it holds true all the way around) lack technology we have in real life.

At any rate, we're side-tracked. I let the damned Imps determine the path of the conversation, and now we're arguing over things that are meaningless. Here's the phrasing from the first post.

"A Baneblade may be very capable, but it isn't very technologically advanced. It has a searchlight, not night vision gear. It has a really big gun, not one that fires with particularly nasty projectile velocity (like a railgun) or with a particular adeptness at bypassing armor (gauss or lances) "


Every counter-argument made in this thread is, "Humanity *has* this, so they're better" when there's no reason to believe humanity actually developed it. No counter-argument explains why humans put searchlights on tanks, or took 10,000 years to put metal plates over the cabling of SM power armor, or why they failed for 6,000 years to put a radar and some anti-aircraft missiles on a Rhino. If fluff didn't discuss about how humanity *tried* to put a radar and some missiles on a Rhino chassis, and couldn't for 6,00 years, and only managed to make an anti-aircraft Rhino variants when they found an STC, I'd have no argument. There would be no thread.

... but no one has an explanation as to why these things are impossible for humanity. In a shorter time than humanity in 40k has existed, RL humans have gone from beginning to work with iron to having missiles on a Bradley and night vision gear in an Abrams... and in 10,000 years, the advanced Imperium of Man can't duplicate either feat.

Except that they would have it. It is a case where you are confusing the rules the game designers add to make a race distinct with what would be real and reasonable. You can't really be saying that a space marine's helmet wouldn't give him night vision are you? We have that. We know that the technology is far ahead of where we are now. Same with eldar and necrons. You really think they wouldn't have ways to use basic night vision?

Don't expect simple technological things to be reflected.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
It Currently has a searchlight, not night vision gear. It has a really big gun, not one that fires with particularly nasty projectile velocity (like a railgun) or with a particular adeptness at bypassing armor (gauss or lances) "

FTFY considering there is no possible way of knowing what they stripped off the thing after the whole AI revolt.

There are Also Variants that can Turn large areas into slag using Frickin Lasers, (Volcano cannons)


No one is going to be able to despute or prove anything as there is nothing written of what changed.

 Desubot wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
It Currently has a searchlight, not night vision gear. It has a really big gun, not one that fires with particularly nasty projectile velocity (like a railgun) or with a particular adeptness at bypassing armor (gauss or lances) "

FTFY considering there is no possible way of knowing what they stripped off the thing after the whole AI revolt.

There are Also Variants that can Turn large areas into slag using Frickin Lasers, (Volcano cannons)


No one is going to be able to despute or prove anything as there is nothing written of what changed.

Why would it be stripped off? I'm pretty sure I can buy some goggles online that don't contain a self-aware computer... especially since all modern technology exists prior to self-aware computers.

 PhillyT wrote:
What is wrong with the tracks? For all the technology the tau have, they aren't capable of armoring their tanks to reach even the basic level of the Leman Russ. There are sacrifices that are made for anything, and when you compare even the best tau tanks to the basic battle tank of the DAOT, the Baneblade, there is no comparison. They were designed for different things. Tau trade armor for versatility. The Imperium seeks durability.

Tau tanks have stealth systems. They're plenty durable as a result.
They also fly.

The Tau have the capability to armour a tank to AV14 if they wanted to. They prefer their tanks fly.

Do they? Prove it.

We know the Imperium is capable of creating hover tanks or has in the past.

It probably had to do with irrational fears. whole systems probably had to be striped of fully autonomous targeting systems that had integrated night vision. chances are like how we have lost the recepies to greek fire and roman cement, they probably forgot how to make non ai assisted night vision.

As well its highly likely there was some major science censorship by the big government in an attempt to prevent another revolt.

Then to throw another spaner into it, the whole pysker thing happened and anarchy and things during the age of strife (IIRC)

Or are you execting there to be a space wikipedia that has all the information for nightvision goggles from the vietnam war.

Edit: again enough with the Tau Ego stroking. it has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

in fact the subject is un answerable as there is nothing written about it.

But that was the point. The Men of Iron revolt was so catastrophic BECAUSE all machines had a A.I in it.

Actually the title answers itself. Archeotech is lost technology, the only faction who has really lost technology is the humans... so it goes the best archeotech is from humans.

I mentioned on the other thread, night vision is standard and pervasive in the IoM. It is all through the fluff.

Leman Russ are listed as having a passive NV suite more than once in the actual technical fluff.

 PhillyT wrote:
Do they? Prove it.

We know the Imperium is capable of creating hover tanks or has in the past.

I think it's a safe bet to say the Tau are capable of slapping plasteel together in a formation that would rival Imperial patterns.
They don't do it because their philosophy of war is not one of attrition. They don't require durability on that level either, because their tanks can mask their presence and fly.

And humanity has created hovertanks in the past, yes, but that's largely irrelevent. The Tau *obviously* have the technology to create heavily armoured vehicles. The fact that they don't have nothing to do with their capabilities, but rather their thinking.


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 PhillyT wrote:
I mentioned on the other thread, night vision is standard and pervasive in the IoM. It is all through the fluff.

Leman Russ are listed as having a passive NV suite more than once in the actual technical fluff.

This is also true.

But that is just it, more than once people assume because something doesn't happen it can't. Why should the tau be given the benefit of the doubt when the IoM isn't?

 PhillyT wrote:
But that is just it, more than once people assume because something doesn't happen it can't. Why should the tau be given the benefit of the doubt when the IoM isn't?

The Tau don't operate their technology out of superstition, they are technologically progressive. The Imperium of Man doesn't understand the technologies it uses on a scientific basis, and cannot improve upon them save for discovery of archeotech or combinations of existing technologies.

The Tau understand anti-grav technology, and so can build hover-tanks. The Mechanicus has largely lost the know-how to do the same, and doesn't understand anti-grav technology's scientific principles at any rate.

That isn't actually true. The Ad Mech understand much more than they allow to be produced. Don't confuse the overall grimdark settling with reality.

The ad mech knows how much of their tech works. In many cases they do not allow for things to be used or progress to be made because it is reactionary. Also, there needs to be proven a need for something new.

 PhillyT wrote:
That isn't actually true. The Ad Mech understand much more than they allow to be produced. Don't confuse the overall grimdark settling with reality.

The ad mech knows how much of their tech works. In many cases they do not allow for things to be used or progress to be made because it is reactionary. Also, there needs to be proven a need for something new.

Innovation on any grand scale is heresy to the Mechanicus, and there are many many technologies that they can reproduce that they understand poorly or barely at all.

If that wasn't true, they would just develop their own technologies instead of searching like crack addicts for archeotech throughout the stars. You know, like the Tau have.

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
But that is just it, more than once people assume because something doesn't happen it can't. Why should the tau be given the benefit of the doubt when the IoM isn't?

The Tau don't operate their technology out of superstition, they are technologically progressive. The Imperium of Man doesn't understand the technologies it uses on a scientific basis, and cannot improve upon them save for discovery of archeotech or combinations of existing technologies.

The Tau understand anti-grav technology, and so can build hover-tanks. The Mechanicus has largely lost the know-how to do the same, and doesn't understand anti-grav technology's scientific principles at any rate.

And how does this really have anything to do with the topic at hand.

Its shown that the IOM had and made Grav tech, Super high powered lasers that can slag anything at a range further than a hammer head, All sorts of crazy medical and stasis tech. then everything changed when gak got real with psykers and AI

Whats to say Tau wont have the same issues when there AI goes buggy.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
What is wrong with the tracks? For all the technology the tau have, they aren't capable of armoring their tanks to reach even the basic level of the Leman Russ. There are sacrifices that are made for anything, and when you compare even the best tau tanks to the basic battle tank of the DAOT, the Baneblade, there is no comparison. They were designed for different things. Tau trade armor for versatility. The Imperium seeks durability.

Tracks are fine, just that the Imperium has a strange habit of leaving them exposed or worse yet, give them no suspension.

To be fair, that's more to do with GW not knowing how tanks work than the IoM

They do still allow new designs. We have already touched on that.

As far as archotech, when what you can find is millennia beyond anything you or any other race can innovate, why not?